Check out today's installment of the 2008 Blue Ribbon Yearbook Aggie Football Preview. Today we're taking a look at the Wide Receivers and Tight Ends.
Our look back at the Best Wins of '07/'08 will resume tomorrow. In the mean time here's some more from our interview with Aggie softball coach Kathy Rodolph after the season.
bleedCrimson..net: Talk about the season that you had, you faced three of the final eight teams in the College World Series (Virginia Tech, Arizona and national runner up Texas A&M ) and four WAC teams (Fresno State, Louisiana Tech, Nevada and Hawai'i) also got into the NCAA tournament.
Kathy Rodolph: We fell short against Fresno losing to the five times in six days. We raised the bar in every game and I was really happy about that. We lost to them by one in seven [innings], by one in nine and then by one in ten. Fresno was definitely a Top 25 team but I think those games alone gave us the confidence to know that we can come back and do something special next year.
All four WAC teams made it to the championship game of their regional. What I was excited about that is it showed how much our conference improved this year. It wasn't like they just got in and got shellacked at regionals. They all fell in the championship game.
I feel like La. Tech going into the conference tournament, winning it and then knocking off Auburn in their regional. I think it really shows the improvement overall in the WAC.
bc.net: Coming into the season you talked about the goal of your non-conference schedule being to put your kids in the situation of playing against the types of teams that you want your program to be like. Looking back on it can you talk about what your assessment is of your non-conference season?
KR: We lost so many games close that it did affect our confidence and our psyche a little bit and maybe the schedule was a little bit overzealous. But saying that had we not lost Ashley Roszkos to pregnancy and she would have been anchoring the four hole in those games and I believe we lost 16 or 17 games by three runs or less, I believe that if Ashley could have been there in the four hole in those games the outcome could have easily swung our way.
This coming year we've already started scheduling. We are going to go to Arizona State's tournament, we are going to a tournament at Louisiana-Lafayette. We're still trying to work a home and away with Arizona. Our kids know that the challenege is going to be high and that they're going to really have to play well and stay calm under pressure but I don't think that we're afraid of that competition.
bc.net: Talk about the experience that your team gained from playing against all those top ranked teams and how that will help you for next season.
KR: I feel like really where experience helps you is when you have the time in the fall that you're really building to get better as a team when you've had kids that have really experienced that top competition that gives them something everyday to work for instead of just this theme that out there that they may face somebody that's really good. We started five freshmen every game and they absolutely know that if we want a chance to win the WAC and go to regional we're going to have to come through on some of those tough games that we lost. That means one more key hit, one more critical stop, one more strikeout in the circle. I think they all realize what they have to do personally for the whole of the team.
bc.net: Does a performance like Louisiana-Lafayette had being in the College World Series and knocking off couple of the teams there give the smaller schools a little extra motivation to say "Hey we can do this too"?
KR: Absolutely. The reason we're going to Lafayette is we're very good friends with the Lafayette coaches and got to be great friends with them while we were in the Sun Belt and I have tremendous respect for what they've done and they absolutely give a ton of hope and confidence to the mid-major.
